


Burn Fast, Burn Sweet

by actualbabe



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/M, Smoking, the gang misses the boat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 12:34:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13717782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actualbabe/pseuds/actualbabe
Summary: It was great, but it wasn't built to last. Or so she thought.What if Dee and Charlie didn't want to go back to normal after The Gang Misses the Boat?





	Burn Fast, Burn Sweet

“You’re going too slow,” Dee hisses into his ear and sinks her nails into the muscles of his upper back.

Charlie groans, his forehead pressed against the sweat-slick slope of her neck. “Well sorry for wanting to enjoy this goddamn moment.”

He shifts his weight on his elbows as Dee rocks her hips up into him. Once this is over, it’s over. That’s all. And they both know it. They have the collective attention span of a goldfish with memory loss and they’re going to abandon this weird detour their relationship is taking the minute it requires even the slightest amount of effort. 

Dee is painfully aware that it’s not going to last. It’s been doomed from the start. She and Charlie are the screw ups of the gang. This thing between them is a half-baked shot in the dark that they’ll fuck up the instant it turns into something promising.

That’s why she wants to plow through this at full steam, get in all the good parts before things start to crumble. But she can’t do that if Charlie gets all sappy and emotional and keeps fucking stalling when he’s balls-deep in her.

She bites at the bruise she’s left at his collarbone and grinds up against him. “Just fuck me already.”

_ “Shit _ , Dee.” 

Dee smirks and wraps her legs around his hips as he picks up the pace of his thrusts. It’s good. Effortless. Charlie’s so easy to please, enough that Dee doesn’t get all caught up in her head trying to figure out if he really means what he’s whispering into her ear or if she’s doing the right thing or if he’s actually attracted to her. 

She feels her orgasm building in the pit of her stomach and then his lips are at her neck and she tugs at his hair and groans out _ “Fuck, yes,”  _ as she comes. 

Afterwards Charlie lies on top of her for a while, his weight heavy and solid, his breath warm against the side of her face. Dee lets her eyes drift shut, her legs slipping off his waist as her fingers scratch absentmindedly at the nape of his neck. 

It’s nice. Lazy and content and there’s this foreign warmth in Dee’s chest that she hasn’t felt in- well she can’t remember. Some part of her brain whispers that it’s probably not normal that she can’t recall the last time she actually felt happy, but at this point ignoring that little voice is practically second nature. 

She’s good. She did good. Charlie thinks that she’s good. She’s good.

Dee lets out a long sigh, sinking a little deeper into the mattress. There’s the wet press of Charlie’s lips underneath her jaw and then he rolls off of her, landing on the other side of the bed with a soft grunt. The bed dips again before bouncing back, and Dee reluctantly pries her eyes open to see him standing beside the bed and tugging on his jeans.

“You’re leaving?” she says, more of a statement than a question.

Charlie opens his mouth to say something, but then seems to think the better of it and stares at the ground instead.

Dee sits up and watches him pull his shirt on over his head. She grits her teeth and tries not to pussy out and do something stupid like cry. She’s a grown woman. She has one night stands all the time. This is old news for her by now. Routine. She leans over the edge of the bed and grabs a t shirt off the floor, ignoring the way he stares at her bare chest and the swing of her tits. 

“I’ll see you at the bar,” she says once he’s finished tying the laces of his shoes.

“Yeah.” Charlie frowns at her. “Bye, Dee.”

The door to the apartment slams shut behind him after he leaves and Dee curls up in the middle of her bed. She lies there for a while, that neutral state of emptiness seeping back into her bones as she stares blankly at the wall of her apartment.

It was doomed to fail. She knew that going in. She knew that when they went out for lunch, she knew that when they were trying to get into def poetry, she knew that when she kissed him back, she knew that when she whispered into his ear and asked him to take her to bed. 

It’s who she is. Sweet Dee. Can’t hold onto a man, can’t get a job outside of her brother’s shit bar, can’t do anything right. Always fucking up the good things life tosses her way, letting them slip through her boney fingers and shatter at her feet. 

But it’s fine. She’s not gonna like, kill herself or some shit. She’s being overdramatic. It’s because she’s an actor, drama is in her blood. 

Dee hauls herself out of bed and pulls on her underwear before stumbling off to the bathroom to take a piss. She avoids her reflection in the mirror as she brushes her teeth, she’ll assess the collateral damage to her neck tomorrow morning before she goes in to the bar. She’ll cover up the hickeys with concealer just like she glosses over everything else that’s wrong with her and things will go back to normal.

\---

She gets to the bar the next day and it's just her and Charlie, awkwardly skirting around the fact that less than 12 hours ago they were fucking. It's weird and stilted and Dee doesn't know how to fill the silence that's heavy between them. 

They call it off, all of them. They abandon whatever half-formed plans they had to change themselves and turn their lives around. It makes sense, and she has no idea what made her think that she might actually be able to pull this off in the first place.

Things go back to normal, Dee picks at Charlie’s illiteracy and he calls her a bird and it's like it never happened. Then Mac leaves to go be gay with Dennis in the back room or some shit and Frank disappears to God knows where and then it's just her and Charlie again. The weird tension from earlier comes back in full force, and that familiar gaggy feeling hits the back of her esophagus. She grabs her purse and leaves without an explanation, knowing that none of them care about her enough to realize that she's disappeared. 

Dee stakes out her usual spot by the dumpster and lights up a cigarette, takes a long inhale of smoke and stares out at the empty alley. Life is shit. 

"What are you doing out here?"

Charlie's got his head stuck out the back door, a look that's upsettingly close to something like concern or worry on his face. 

"Isn't it obvious, dickhead?" she bites out, and takes another drag. 

He nods and steps out into the alleyway, hands shoved into the pockets of his ratty jeans. The same jeans he was wearing yesterday, the ones that he left on her floor while he pressed her down into the mattress and made her actually feel something close to good.

"Can I bum a cigarette?"

She stares at him for a minute, and then digs the pack out of her purse, cursing herself for being such a pushover. "You owe me, asshole. I won’t forget it."

"Yeah, yeah." Charlie shrugs and takes his pick from the carton. He holds it out to Dee, who reluctantly lights it up for him. 

"Thanks.” He smiles at her.

"Whatever." She squashes the flutter in the pit of her stomach. "Dick worm."

They stand there for a while, smoking in silence and avoiding the obvious. 

"I missed you."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean, Charlie?"

He shrugs. "I don't know, but-" He sighs and kicks at a discarded plastic Big Gulp cup. "When I got back to my place I wished that I hadn't left."

Dee doesn't say anything. She had missed him too, had fallen asleep in her too-big bed with her phone screen lighting up the dark room until she finally passed out. 

He's being a dick. He's the one who chose to leave. There was no way in hell she would've asked him to stay, but she wouldn't have kicked him out either. If he was lonely or some bullshit, well that's on him. She's not the one to blame here.

He takes a long drag of his cigarette and then looks over at her, something complicated in his eyes. "What if- what if I didn't want to go back to normal?"

"How drunk are you right now?" 

"Not any more than usual."

"Don't fuck with me, Charlie.” She narrows her eyes and glares at him. “If you just wanna sleep with me again or something-"

"No, Dee, it's not-"

"Because I'm not just some bitch you can walk all over, okay?"

"I didn't think you were-"

“And I’m having a pretty shitty day already so I don’t need you to fuck it up even more.”

Charlie falls silent after that. He stares down at the pavement with a frown, his jaw clenched tight. “Look, Dee, I get it,” he bites out before taking another drag.

“What the hell do you mean, Charlie?”

“I get it, okay?” he yells, a bitter edge to his tone. “I get that I’m a huge fuck up and some kind of dirtgrub who can’t read. I know you think I’m gross and got dirt on any place I touched you and that you probably had to take like eight showers after I left which is why you smell so good today. You don’t have to fucking rub it in my face.”

“I don’t think that.” Dee yells back. “ _ You’re _ the one who left, dickbag. I didn’t want you t-” she cuts off suddenly, because she’s supposed to be the one in power here. She’s in charge.

Charlie’s eyebrows are high up on his forehead. “What?”

“Nothing,” she says quickly.

“Did you want me to stay?” he asks, slightly cocky.

“Shut up.”

He smirks at her, and Dee hates that it’s almost endearing. Fucking Charlie. Making her all mushy. Charlie takes another slow drag of his cigarette, and Dee can’t help the way her gaze gets caught on his slightly opened mouth as he blows out the smoke. She taps off some of the ash from her own cigarette and absently sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. Her eyes dart back up to his, and they’re dark and lidded as he stares at her. 

Dee quirks one eyebrow, daring him to do something.

Charlie drops his cigarette to the ground and then his arms are around her waist before she has a chance to anything except gasp. He yanks her close to him and  _ devours _ her. His open mouth is hard and messy against hers as he kisses her frantically while she does her best to keep up. His hands are everywhere; the small of her back, tangled in her hair, the upper curve of her shoulder blade, the side of her waist. Dee kisses him back, desperate and breathless and she chucks her unfinished cigarette off in the distance so she can pull him into her until there’s no space between them.

After a few minutes she cups the curve of his jaw and slows the kiss down, their lips gliding slow and slick against each other. Dee chases the stale taste of smoke on his breath and tangles her tongue up with his, the gentle push and pull that makes her chest ache and head dizzy.

He pulls away reluctantly and his voice is raw when he whispers, “I don’t want to go back to normal. I want you.”

“I want you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> check me out on [tumblr!](http://actualbabe.tumblr.com/)


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